MENA, MENA, Tekel, Parsin (Middle East, North Africa & other Geopolitical Hotspots) 2018

what would you like to see done besides more news headlines?

A notion of actual interest from EU/America in this sordid tragedy would be nice. The headlines will be written after that.

It's pretty obvious Trump is clueless. The US army is more or less acting on its own within this conflict, for better or for worse. I'm equally disappointed in the EU though. They're absent from the plate.

so what are you specifically proposing? what does EU stepping up to the plate means to you? what solutions are believes are the best?

If you contest that US/EU looking away is in some way ok, then I won't bother anymore, too tired for that shit. I don't have the answers, but both continents can apply much more pressure to the opposing parties than they are currently doing. US should be deeply ashamed for letting the Kurds fight their battle against ISIS and now leaving them to die in Syria.

yeah and a lot of us are tired of the western savior complex.

Tell that to the Kurds - some of mine, family - begging the US to stay in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria, because their presence has been a life preserver.

By applying pressure I suppose you mean military pressure. You can say it; its okay, this discussion is only theorical.

...

i probably agree w/ you but it's hard to tell since you're speaking very vaguely. i don't know what "A notion of actual interest from EU/America in this sordid tragedy would be nice." would mean. do you want heavier investment in kurdish military? (i'm in favor of that.) do you want direct military engagements between US or NATO forces in Syria? i don't think the West has the stomach for that post-Iraq. more investment in arming rebels? just calling out Assad in front of the UN more? there aren't a ton of options that i can see that span the gap between paying lip service (which is what i assume you're not interested in) and direct military engagement (which i'm not sure if you're interested in). if yes to military engagement - aerial engagement? boots on the ground? missile strikes?

I don't see how I could be interpreted as speaking "vaguely". Yes, I want heavier investment, especially in Kurdish forces, from the west. They need backing. They deserve backing, having done all the hard work in the first place, fighting ISIS.

"The west" might not have "the stomach" for post-Iraq, or for anything for that matter. But it should. That's my whole point. Very convenient to bow out at the worst possible time. "The west" shouldn't have been there in the first place, agreed. But they were, and are, so take responsibility and deal with the mess you helped create. (btw Kurds are not "rebels", but I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant, as I know you understand the situation really well).

If you, too, don't see an option in progressing this, then who does? That's my whole point. "We" don't know. "The west" is doing fuck all. Yet Assad is gassing and killing people hiding in bomb shelters. Children.

So: yes to "military engagement". To end Assad's crimes. To liberate the Kurds, the Syrian population who wanted none of this. But it won't happen, because Syria/Kurds/Middle East in general has become a chess board for USA and Russia to play a game over.

Interesting piece on Syria from the lrb by Patrick Cockburn https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n07/patrick-cockburn/survivors-of-the-syrian-wars

I agree with you and I think ending Assad’s regime would be just. I just don’t see a practical route to getting there. Even if Trump agreed to commit more resources and forces it would be done in such a shit thoughtless way it would almost certainly make things worse. POTUS Hillary was the only shot at a potentially valuable intervention from the US. France could intervene (they did in Mali) but they won’t with Russian involvement. Israel won’t explicitly open that front into full blown war but that border situation is volatile. Saudis are over extended and tapped out and probably standing over their own precipice. Turkey I don’t even have to mention to you.

Btw it makes perfect sense to me why Assad would use chemical weapons now. When his rule was more precarious he needed to make sure direct intervention didn’t happen. Now he can probably do what he wants. And what he wants is to pacify the rebellion and he’s apparently decided to do it by brutalizing them in a gruesome and horrible way to totally break the will. This is an alternative to indefinite occupation. Xpz

But {military intervention} won't happen, because Syria/Kurds/Middle East in general has become a chess board for USA and Russia to play a game over.

Your idea that intervention is only off the table because the US and Russia feel like playing with their cat's paws instead of getting serious and ending the war is rather too simplistic to capture what is going on. The fighting would be happening without the participation of either the US or Russia. It is fierce because it is a civil war, and the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah is inspired by local interests, not global politics.

If you think the US and EU could simply walk in, "win" the war and impose a peace, perhaps you may have noticed the sterling results we've obtained somewhat recently through western military intervention in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, you may have noticed that bombing the shit out of a country, or pouring in troops and heavy armaments, or both, is not only expensive in terms of money and lives, but has repercussions far outside the borders of the country being destroyed. And more than a few civilians get killed in the process, in ways just as deadly and dreadful as chemical weapons or barrel bombs.

Agreed w/ everything Mordy said.

If you think the US and EU could simply walk in, "win" the war and impose a peace, perhaps you may have noticed the sterling results we've obtained somewhat recently through western military intervention

This isn't what I think, nor have I said it was simple.

Nothing is simple. But if we want to learn from the past, we must also admit that Syria has gone about as bad as it possibly could.

I mean, read that Cockburn-piece jiv just posted. It should quite clear that the US has made decisions that has been disastrous, and not all of them are on Trump and Tillerson.

there's def going to be some sort of bombing campaign with the U.S., U.K., France, GCC maybe in the next couple days it feels like.

some sort of bombing campaign

performative acts of war are not very effective at anything but blowing up some things and killing some people who might not have otherwise died. to the degree such a bombing campaign is not performative, it would be an escalation of the violence, so that even more things are destroyed and still more people are killed, but with what end in view?

in the context of a raging civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, this bombing campaign is likely to be the wartime equivalent of hitting a dog on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. Assad will not desist from atrocities, because they serve his war aims. It will not matter if our goal is noble, if we lack the means to achieve anything but a surge of meaningless violence.

oh yeah i agree it is not going to be a good thing, but it seems it will be a thing. would be incredibly surprised if it doesn't go ahead.

Does Iraq provide a good model for what wd happen in Syria as a result of a western intervention? Some differences are striking, like Saddam sitting on all the sects (factions?) then with him gone they erupt into civil war, meaning more violence overall in the country ... whereas in Syria the sects are already in a civil war

Not really the same though, because of demographics. Syria is a majority Sunni country, ran by an Alawite dynasty that, due to the small number of Alawites in the country, does not act in a sectarian manner.

In Iraq the majority are Shia and Saddam's regime was primarily Sunni-led and engaged in sectarian oppression of the Shia majority.

The only really sectarian element to the Syrian Civil War is the fact that the rebels are extremely sectarian Sunni islamists

In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, there were uprisings in Iraq, both Kurds in the north and Iraqi Shiites in the south. Saddam squashed them quickly and violently and iirc, only after that was a no-fly zone imposed over much of Iraq.

My memory tells me a similar no-fly zone was contemplated at the early stages of the Syrian Civil War, but was not instituted, in part because of political pushback in the USA. My assessment is that Assad's early survival and present ascendancy has mainly been due to air power, now supplemented greatly by Russian warplanes.

But the short answer is probably 'no', viewing Iraq as a model for Syria is not especially helpful. For one thing, there's no sizeable US army presence on the ground there.

To maintain a no fly zone a large amount of ground force would have to be committed. Would require really ratcheting up involvement, which nobody (well not nobody, Clinton was all for it) was too interested in at the time.

Trump was pretending he was an "America first non-interventionist" at the time under the influence of Bannon

How many airfields does Assad have?

Hillary also suggested in 2017

I really believe that we should have and still should take out his airfields

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_Air_Force_bases

some 'expert' on NPR this morning said we should absolutely bomb Syria but then continued to stress we need an actual plan there going forward. wtf man? just indiscriminately bomb them to show our dick size but for what else exactly? its also not lost on me that we're all mad that civilians are getting killed in syria in this one specific way but generally are ok with them getting slaughtered by conventional weapons.

putting aside whether it's a good idea maybe we'd bomb them as deterrence against using chemical weapons and not to "show our dick size"

Yup. And for fucks sake, the left needs better foreign policy ideas than 'what's wrong with chemical weapons anyway?'

maybe we'd bomb them as deterrence against using chemical weapons

But effective deterrence requires Assad knowing he will pay a price much heavier than the benefits he would expect from the use of chemical weapons. That requires among other things, the certainty provided by a clear and consistent policy spelled out in advance. It also requires that the price he expects to pay is one that deprives him of a thing he values far more highly than the benefits he believes chemical weapons will provide him. Neither of those elements seem to exist and therefore the bombing cannot be expected to deter him.

Yup. And for fucks sake, the left needs better foreign policy ideas than 'what's wrong with chemical weapons anyway?'

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 11:59 AM (twenty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

should just go along with thoughtless saber-rattling which on balance of probabilities - considering our interventions in the Arab world in the 21st century - will likely only do more harm instead? this would be a foreign policy i suppose, exactly identical to that of the republicans but sure, it would be "doing something"

I'm so tired of this fucking strawman bullshit, but even considering that, why would we only consider interventions in the 21st century as the basis of a foreign policy?

well we could consider all the really super successful ones from the 20th century all the way back to sykes-picot if you'd like but i don't think that would really help you much

International agreements that impose prior restraint on the creation or stockpiling of weapons, or which establish universally accepted norms ahead of wartime, seem to be about effective a tool as exists so far. The Geneva Convention held up for many, many decades. So have the conventions on nuclear proliferation and chemical weapons.

But warfare by its nature defies limits because the stakes are often escalated to survival itself, at which point external and conventional restraints tend to fail and only self-imposed internalized restraints apply.

I don't think it's unfair to suggest that things could get much much worse with yet another western intervention.

Plus, the fact that it's Trump and May in power... If that can't pause you then I don't know what can.

x-posts: Yeah, looking at the 20th century, the involvement of Russia or Turkey has clearly worked so much better.

Trump and May (and Putin) are responsible for Syria now to a large extent because Obama refused to take that responsibility upon himself. And it's also not unfair to suggest that the civil war in Syria has gone about as horrible as it possibly could. Again, the left needs to have a better response to the gassing of children than 'eh, could be worse'.

That's the thing. As long as western nations claim responsibility onto foreign nations then entire regions will be destabilized and civilians lives lost.

Okay. Let's take a moment and ponder the stupidity of that claim. On the one hand, it's obviously true. Sure. But on the other, it's absolutely, 100% meaningless. Will civilian lives stop being lost if western nations stop claiming responsibility? Fuck no! Then what's the fucking difference, unless the point is just to avoid feeling responsible for bad things?

the left needs to have a better response to the gassing of children than 'eh, could be worse'

First, I do not see this statement made by anyone I know or by any 'representatives' of the left, so if you attribute this as the left's response, I don't what that is based upon. However, responses are not confined to statements, but may be actions as well.

The problem I see is that, especially in the USA, the left has no effective control over the apparatus of national policy. As such, the avenues of action available to the left, at least here in the USA, are mainly symbolic actions, which are the equivalent of verbal statements, but coupled with some symbolic activity. I'd really like to hear what your ideas might be for a 'better response' than the moral condemnations being made by leaders and ordinary people across the globe.

Enlighten me.

You don't think Obama had control over national policy, or you don't consider him part of the left?

Okay. Let's take a moment and ponder the stupidity of that claim. On the one hand, it's obviously true. Sure. But on the other, it's absolutely, 100% meaningless. Will civilian lives stop being lost if western nations stop claiming responsibility? Fuck no! Then what's the fucking difference, unless the point is just to avoid feeling responsible for bad things?

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 3:53 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the last 60 years of american and european interventions point out the difference you are asking about.

The US felt responsible for South Viet Nam too you know.

You don't think Obama had control over national policy, or you don't consider him part of the left?

The latter, duh.

Sigh

Therein lies your problem.

Must be nice to shit this thread up with the most nonsense but still feel like you can just post sigh as a rejoinder to other posters

Would be so much nicer if everyone who thought the very idea of leftists influencing foreign policy was impossible would draw the logical conclusion from that and shut the fuck up.

I'm so tired of this fucking straw man bullshit...

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 12:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would be so much nicer if everyone who thought the very idea of leftists influencing foreign policy was impossible would draw the logical conclusion from that and shut the fuck up.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, April 11, 2018 1:16 PM (twelve seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You don't think Obama had control over national policy, or you don't consider him part of the left?

ffs, Fred. When did Obama ever say the equivalent of "gassing kids? eh. could be worse." He didn't. So citing him does not make your case. And as for actions, exactly which of Obama's options would you have chosen?

I'm so tired of this fucking strawman bullshit

Then why build your own strawman about the responses coming from the left?